Freshman Seminar: Eros through the Ages: Love and Lust in the Greco-Roman World

From a cosmic god of love to a complex emotion, eros is a seminal concept shaping a range of mythological, literary, and artistic works of antiquity. Sappho described eros as "sweet-bitter," neatly capturing its paradoxical position at the intersection of pleasure and pain, love and hate. In this seminar, we will unpack the varied ways eros played out across poetry, philosophy, politics and art in the ancient Greek and Roman world and how these ancient definitions of love still inform our own modern understanding of the term.